Angus King on ‘Assault Weapons’: ‘I Have a Problem with Banning a Weapon Because of Its Appearance’

EXCERPT:

KING: "No. I think we’ve got to look at that carefully. Here’s the problem. I’m from a state where we have one of the highest gun ownership rates in the country, and yet, we have one of the lowest rates of gun crime. An assault weapon — it’s called an assault weapon, but it’s simply a semi-automatic hunting rifle in costume with a different kind of stock. But the functionality of the weapon is exactly the same as probably thousands of them in Maine and Alaska, all over the United States that are used by legitimate hunters. So I have a problem with banning a weapon because of its appearance. One of the problems that we had when they did it before was they changed the appearance a little bit and the ban doesn’t apply. I think there are other issues, for example magazine size, that maybe we do need to have a discussion about. Because a lot of times in these situations, apparently, it’s when the fellow — it’s always a fellow — starts to reload. That’s when you might have a chance to stop the tragedy. And so magazine size I think is something we need to talk about, but I’ve never been one to say, 'Yeah, let’s get rid of the assault weapons’ when it's really a semi-automatic hunting rifle in costume."